Name: To Mix Plum Pudding
Ingredients: salt; beaten eggs; brandy; milk; bitter almonds; butter (for greasing); pudding cloth or muslin

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Mix Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

In a large pan, combine all ingredients as you prepare them.
Sprinkle salt over the mixture, then add beaten eggs and brandy.
Add milk last, adjusting the amount until the mixture is stiff and difficult to stir.
If using bitter almonds, crumble and add them gradually with care.
For two puddings, butter two quart bowls, fill them, and cover with buttered paper.
Scald and flour a pudding cloth, tie it over the bowls, and boil each pudding for six hours.
On the day of serving, boil for an additional two hours.
For one large pudding, boil for eight hours and two hours on the day of serving.
Alternatively, use muslin: scald and flour a square, pour in the mixture, tie it tightly, and boil for six hours for a quart pudding, and one and a half hours on the day of serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Brandy + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,738 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).